Rampant Cardiff Blues made it a perfect six wins out of six European Cup outings with a nine-try, 62-20 demolition of Calvisano on Friday to grab top seeding for the quarter-finals.
In the night's other Pool 6 clash, Gloucester's slim hopes of claiming a place in the last eight as a best runner-up ended in a demoralising 24-10 defeat by Biarritz who are also eliminated.
Cardiff, who made sure of top spot in Pool 6 last week with a come-from-behind 16-12 win at Gloucester, despite playing with 14 men, were unstoppable against their awkward Italian opponents.
Gareth Thomas (2), T Rhys Thomas (2), Ben Blair, Xavier Rush, Leigh Halfpenny, Martyn Williams and Maama Molitika all scored as Cardiff became only the sixth team in European Cup history to win all their group games.
"We made a little bit hard work of it, but we had to give Calvisano a bit of credit because they had a lot of possession and a lot of territory, especially early in the game," said Blues coach Dai Young.
"We really had to work hard to get the scores we needed. On occasions we were a bit sloppy and tried the miracle ball - but nine tries, you've got to be happy with that."
Calvisano score two tries, but they still have not won a match in their last five seasons in the competition.
In France, Biarritz sped into a 17-0 lead after just 15 minutes over a shellshocked Gloucester.
No 8 Imanol Harinordoquy and mercurial scrum-half Dimitri Yachvili both crossed as the Englishmen struggled to settle in the wet, muddy conditions.
But Gloucester, who needed a bonus-point win to have any hope of securing a quarter-final spot, battled back with England winger James Simpson-Daniel reducing the margin, finishing off a flowing move.
Olly Barkley converted and then added a penalty to make the score 17-10 at the interval.
Gloucester would have felt hard done by in the 35th minute when French centre Damien Traille tripped Iain Balshaw who was clean through.
Instead of a penalty try, Gloucester had to be content with a penalty kick which was missed by Barkley.
Biarritz centre Julien Peyrelongue added a third try for his side, following a charge-down, in the seventh minute of the second half which Yachvili converted for 24-10.
Copyright 2009 AFP Global Edition
